Freed From a Disability...

To be freed from a disability after living with it for decades is probably one of the most profound experiences that a person can have! I spent most of last week in sound booths at the hospital, having my new Kanso cochlear implant processor mapped by a very nice audiologist. At the end of the mapping and tests, I scored 94 percent on voice recognition. The hearing in my implanted ear has been tripled!

Later last week, when the tests were completed, I went for a family lunch with my son and parents. Everyone wanted to see how the processor was working. The ease with which I heard as I enjoyed quesadillas and Heineken was astounding. My mother and father were amazed and ecstatic.

Also, the night before, I’d made my first phone call in so many years, to my very surprised father! I talked to both parents on the phone and they were blown away. I have a phone clip device with Bluetooth technology and it works beautifully. It sends the call recipient’s voice straight into my processor and cuts out every bit of background noise.

These improvements are wonderful. Every day, I want to get up and get ready as soon as possible, so I can put on the processor and have hearing all day and night. While I’m still learning to identify the sounds I hear, and voices still sound a bit cartoonish, every day brings new learning and major improvements.

To celebrate, I signed up for pilates and yoga classes yesterday. It’ll be so much fun to go to a class and hear an instructor! My goal over the next few weeks is to enjoy going to the gym, enjoy my job and enjoy my relationships. Without the burden of hearing loss, I wake up feeling fresh and rested, even when I get little sleep. It’s an epic life change which promises to continue getting better over time.

If you have severe to profound hearing loss, I strongly encourage you to talk to your audiologist about the cochlear implant. While the operation aftermath was rough, I did heal well and feel great now. Waiting to activate the implant was hard, but it was so worth it! Once your cochlear implant is activated, you’ll be able to get so much joy from every single day!

Today, we’re hitting the mall and going out for lunch. It’s my first round of retail therapy after getting the implant activated, so it’s more than a typical Saturday outing. It’s a grand adventure which allows me to smoothly and happily interact with new people. 

Read my New Top Ten List - 10 Fascinating Facts About Anne Boleyn

As my readers may know, I had cochlear implant surgery on the 5th of June, 2017. It took some time to recover and I was not able to do much for a few weeks, thanks to some dizziness, pain and nausea. In fact, I was unable to do simple errands, such as walking to the grocery store or making myself food, for quite a while afterwards.

Around three weeks post-op, I started to recover in earnest and I now feel great. I walk on the beach, go shopping and generally feel grateful for every little thing that's enjoyable in life (including the new Wonder Woman movie, which I managed to see shortly before the surgical procedure!)

Surgery is scary and it brings a sense of perspective which is profound. The feeling which is experienced before one is wheeled into the operating room is like no other.

My cochlear implant will be activated on the 17th of July, 2017. I'm excited about it and so are my nearest and dearest. I've been dealing with hearing loss since the age of 15, so seeing what the technology will do for me will definitely be fascinating!

I had so much support while I was getting better and I have so much love and respect for the people who were there for me during this difficult time, when I was uncharacteristically helpless.

I've always been interested in the notorious females of history. My new list is "10 Fascinating Facts about Anne Boleyn". She is someone who still generates quite a buzz, because she managed to claw her way to the pinnacle, where she was soon struck down like nobody's business (literally, with the honed and shining edge of a French swordsman's blade!)

I hope you enjoy the list. While I've been concentrating on the sunny side of life lately, as the prospect of great hearing is on the horizon (in just a few days, too!), this list is probably not the sunniest. That being said, this is a woman who captivated and continues to intrigue. She's well worth reading about.

Anne Boleyn was an example of proto-feminism in action!

Within the restrictions of her age, (which, for women, were severe), she moved upwards, towards the power that she craved, by using every tool in her arsenal.

It did not end well for her. Luckily, times have changed...

CLICK HERE to read the list, which is situated at Toptenz.net...I hope you enjoy it!

Cheers,

Heather

Time for a Cochlear Implant!

I'm a single Mom and I write so much for pay, six days a week, that I rarely write for pleasure anymore. I don't mind, but I miss it sometimes and now seems like an appropriate moment to get back into it. 

Over the past six months, I've been moving through the health care system, inching towards my surgery day for a cochlear implant. It's going to happen on the 5th of June, 2017. 

Some of you may already know that the past several months have been extremely challenging for me on a personal level. My computer and phone were hacked and I've been dealing with a lot of weirdness which is too disturbing to go into here.  

I've handled the pressure as best I can and it's not something that I'm going to give any more energy to.  

Suffice it to say that things have calmed down somewhat and I'm ready to move forward. 

Despite all of the issues I've had to deal with since mid-October, I feel very positive about where my life is going.

I've Been Hard of Hearing for Decades

When I was only fifteen, I had problems which indicated hearing loss. However, at that time, I didn't really realize that I had worse hearing then others. For example, I remember being unable to comprehend the French words that my long-suffering French Immersion teacher, M. LaForest, played on a tape recorder in class. 

I was fine with the written French work. However, I simply couldn't make sense of what I was hearing on the tape recorder. I couldn't understand a single word and just assumed I wasn't very bright. 

I realize in retrospect that I was already dealing with hearing loss. My maternal grandmother had the same type of problem which started around the same time in her life.

It took a couple more years until things reached critical mass. I went to University, where I had a scholarship for Journalism. During that time frame, I lost the ability to hear a single word that was said in class. 

One day, I was washing my face and realized that I couldn't hear the water running. This was serious and traumatic. There could be no more "putting up with it" and no more denial. It was just too serious. 

I went to an audiologist and it took him all of thirty seconds, armed with a single tuning fork, to diagnose hearing loss that would only grow worse over time. I was fitted with hearing aids. It was truly awful. Do you know that I haven't made a single phone call since I was a teenager? I can't. 

Thus began the next phase of life, which was moving out of the hearing world into the netherworld of the late-deafened. This is quite a nasty shock. It's something that so many people have to go through. In my late teens, I was ill-equipped to deal with the isolation and confusion. It was a rough time and one that darkened my dreams. 

It changed everything and, now, at 46 years of age, I look back on thirty-one years of hearing loss and just...shake my head. Like, "wow". It's been so intense! It's not like there is no joy. It's not like I can't hear anything. I actually have great hearing aids. I love music. It's just not the same. 

My memories of having normal hearing are so faint. I know as a young girl I used to sit in the back of my parent's car and listen to "Devil Woman" by Cliff Richard on the radio. I remember I used to talk to people on the phone while I ate popcorn and watched Dynasty on a small TV in the family kitchen. 

The ease with which I heard back then seems miraculous now, like something magical from another life...

Someone that I talked to at the hospital said that the lives of the hard of hearing get narrower over time. I understand what that means but I want to broaden my horizons. Life is supposed to be about progress.  

It's such an ordeal to try and piece together what's happening around you. You can't relax in group situations. You can't relax one on one. Your brain is always trying to fill in the blanks. It keeps the body and mind in a chronic stress state. 

We're supposed to deal with stress intermittently and then have breaks. The severely hard of hearing don't really get these breaks. Quite often, I feel like a soldier trudging through a field, with blisters on my feet and miles to go before rest is possible. 

You just keep walking, but it hurts...

You get used to living with stress and it's not the end of the world, but maybe there's a better way. 

This is where the cochlear implant comes in...

A couple of years ago, I considered the cochlear implant, but got cold feet. Although I have a job I like and a wonderful son, I don't consider myself naturally lucky (this is perhaps not really true) and I figured the cochlear implant would not work for me. I thought the risk of it not working was too great to take. 

I knew if it didn't work, it would wipe out every bit of residual hearing in the implanted ear. If it failed, I would be worse off. 

That's still the case, actually, but I'm going to do it anyway. The technology has really moved forward and my surgeon has told me that people like me, who are late-deafened, do very well with cochlear implants. He said the technology is amazing. 

His positive energy gives me confidence. 

Yesterday, I went to the hospital and they used magnetic resonance imaging technology to check the bone placements in my inner ear. Apparently, the relevant bones are in the normal positions, so it's all right to operate. 

The next step is the cochlear implant surgery on the 5th of June. The surgery date is so close! They actually offered me an earlier date and I panicked and said no. I thought I would need to wait two years to get the cochlear implant, but more funding was accessed and the waiting list just...shrunk. I felt everything was moving too fast, so I kept the original surgery date.  

I am grateful that I don't have to wait two years or more. My main concern is how long it will take me to recover before I can start working again. 

Right now, I've taken the almost-unprecedented step of booking three days off from my full-time job. I've been working for the same person for years and she could not be more supportive. 

So, this is the first installment of my cochlear implant blog. When I get the surgery, I'll take photographs and then have my son videotape the activation of the cochlear implant. While we're told to manage our expectations and I definitely do this everyday, I'm certainly curious about the technology and what it will do for me. 

This blog is being posted on social media, but it's really for anyone who wants to learn about the cochlear implant and how it might help them. I look at so many other blogs from cochlear implant patients and they are valuable resources. I want to record what happens to me with perfect honesty. 

It's a journey and the operation itself is a leap of faith. I have no control over the outcome. 

We hard of hearing people are everywhere. We have invisible disabilities which change our entire lives. We suffer a lot because of silence and we frequently suffer in silence. The good people at St. Paul's Hospital devote their careers to easing our suffering. The kind donors who give money so that we may access free cochlear implants are likewise heroes to the deaf and hard of hearing. 

I can't tell you how nice everyone at St. Paul's Hospital is. I am lucky to be a patient there. 

Anyway, it's time to just chill until the big day. To work and to prepare. Then, I'll need to have a bit of my head shaved and I'll go under general anesthetic for a couple of hours. I should go home that night. 

Who I'll be four to six weeks later, when the cochlear implant is activated, is still a mystery. It's a great adventure and 2017 is shaping up to be a pivotal year in the life of this freelance writer and single Mom. 

Soaked in Bleach - My Review

Rating - *****

As a Nirvana fangirl of long-standing, I certainly shed tears on the day he died. I was horrified that someone who seemed to view the world in just the same way that I did was unable to hack it! In no way did I judge him – plenty did, but the ones who did clearly don’t understand despair…lucky them…

Anyway, I accepted the official account of his death for many years. After all, this was a heroin addict who was likely married to a bona fide sociopath! Although he loved his daughter and this love was obvious in every photograph of the two of them, I knew that Kurt was a depressive sort and sometimes, depression trumps everything else in life. I didn’t view his suicide as cowardice.

At some point, I got a copy of Love & Death: The Murder of Kurt Cobain and I read it from cover to cover. It was interesting in that it shed light on Courtney Love’s activities on the days leading up to Kurt’s death. While I never pictured her as the loving wife, I did not realize that she was actively scheming in the days before his suicide. Scheming is really the only appropriate word for what was happening.

After Love & Death, I still had questions and some of these questions remain in my mind. For example, if Kurt bought the shotgun and shells, how did Courtney and Cali know about it, if (as many believe), they planned his death? 

Did they find the shotgun in his closet? Did they wait for him to buy the shells himself?

This was my main qualm. He bought the gun of his volition, with Dylan, and then he bought the shells. He chose to do that and I’m wondering how they knew about the gun. That’s my big question…

Perhaps this question has already been answered and I missed the response, somehow. Anyway…

On the flip side, certain other aspects of the case seemed to point directly to Courtney’s involvement, including the practice handwriting sheet in her backpack, the fact that she lied about contact with Kurt to the P.I. (Tom Grant), whom she hired in order to help her find her missing husband, the fact that she led Grant on a wild goose chase by telling him that Kurt, who was missing, only stayed in the best hotels, when he preferred ratholes which were perhaps redolent of down-and-dirty Aberdeen…

So, I would weigh the evidence quite a lot and I must say that the fact that Kurt’s credit card was used after his death was something that made me very uneasy. I was startled that the Seattle PD wouldn’t consider this a sign of foul play, as I did. 

I don’t think they did a very good investigation, period.

Soaked in Bleach is a documentary which details Tom Grant’s experiences while employed as Courtney Love’s personal private investigator. It includes authentic phone calls between Grant and key players, including Courtney Love and lawyer Rosemary Carroll. In particular, I give great weight to Carroll’s gut feelings about the case. She is someone who is trained to think critically and she knew Kurt and Courtney very well. I find it hard to dismiss her initial feelings about what was happening. I think her views were probably one hundred percent accurate.

I don’t want to write an endless review here. In the end, I think that since the gun is melted down (by Courtney), the greenhouse was torn down (by Courtney) and Kurt Cobain was cremated (Courtney arranged this), that evidence will never surface which is sufficient to punish someone for his alleged murder. It’s unfortunate that a proper investigation wasn’t carried out. It was a terrible oversight and shameful.

The value of Soaked in Bleach, in my opinion, is its capacity to puncture the many myths that Courtney Love has created in order to bolster her own image. The phone calls and dramatic re-enactments in Soaked in Bleach are absolutely sufficient to demonstrate that this woman had pronounced disdain for her own husband and hid facts which might have allowed Grant to find him sooner. So, from that standpoint, it’s extremely important.

I view Soaked in Bleach as an antidote to decades of shameless propaganda and revisionist history from Love, and for that reason, I applaud Tom Grant and all others who gave this documentary life.  

My gut feeling is that certain people are capable of anything, due to their own sociopathic natures, and I feel that Courtney Love is a sociopath. However, that’s just my opinion. I have to say that Courtney Love is very talented in her own right. However, manipulation seems to be an obsession of hers and there is much evidence to back this up…

Great documentary, please check it out!

Lame Celebrity Sightings, Part One

If you're interested in reading about the lamest celebrity sightings, there is really no need to look any further. Since I live in the glamorous environs of Hollywood North, I have access to celebrities at work and play. 

Here is my list of lame celebrity sightings, in order of how boring they were. Please share your own celebrity encounters with me.

4.) Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell

I was trapped on a city bus, heading up West Broadway towards Future Shop. when I noticed a woman on the street - she happened to have exceptionally nice hair and an excellent figure. She was locking up her mountain bike near the bus stop. Her back was to me, but I was transfixed by her incredibly silky blond hair - it really did look glorious.

When she turned around, I realized it was Goldie Hawn, looking much better than in photographs. Kurt Russell was beside her... they were both wearing Lycra bicycle shorts and heading into Golden Szechuan for lunch.

Murmurs of interest rippled through the Number 9 Broadway bus as everyone gazed at the celebrities. Then, the moment ended, and I forgot all about it: until now.

3.) Ryan Reynolds

This guy is fairly hot, so there was some degree of prurient interest on my part when I first beheld Ryan at the Vancouver Auto Show a few years ago. However, this encounter occurred way back when, during his Two Guys, A Girl, and a Pizza Place phase, and he seemed to be rocking some rather questionable blond highlights.

Ryan was alone, looking at cars, and he seemed a bit aloof. I sat on a bench, nursing a Cafe Mocha and waiting for the boring yearly ritual of car show attendance to end. I checked out Ryan pretty thoroughly for a couple of minutes, then went back to spacing out.

2.) Ryan Reynolds - Part Deux

I was a lethargic captive on yet another dreadful public transit ride when I saw Ryan for the second time, just months after my initial RR sighting. He was sitting at a dining table outdoors, on the patio of an upscale restaurant named Feenie's, which was located close to my home.

Feenie's was run by internationally-renowned chef Rob Feenie and featured ridiculously overpriced comfort food, such as mac and cheese with truffles. Feenie's also had the benefit of being located directly across the street from a garish KFC, which may be one of the reasons why the restaurant has tanked.

Ryan was a brunette during Part Deux - as he should be - and looked delicious as he sat outside, sucking in the chicken grease fumes from across the street. Overall, a sexy encounter, but I couldn't help but notice that his eyes seem a little too close together, like Dubya's.

1.) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle

I was downtown, driving around with a friend, when I experienced my favourite celebrity encounter. Imagine my delight as I beheld a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle taking a break from filming and enjoying a tasty snack out on the street!

Vancouver turned surreal as I imagined a society of Ninja Turtles protecting the city streets and noshing on 99 cent pizza slices with fake cheese. I was ashamed to be so excited, but my friend was pretty stoked, too, so I just enjoyed the moment.

I look forward to your contributions :) 

I HEART P.J. O' ROURKE

…one woman’s open love letter to the cigar-chomping, right-wing curmudgeon…. By Heather Matthews

I found the books of P.J. O’Rourke by accident. 

Always a fan of darkly sarcastic and rebellious minds, I was overjoyed to find such subversive wit and, underneath it all, so much substance.

I believe my first experience with P.J. was Holidays in Hell and it remains my favourite of his books. 

When P.J. travels, he does it right…

Seemingly perpetually bombed on whatever local hooch was provided in whichever country he found himself in, he still managed to create lucid accounts of third world strife and absurdity, as well as diverting accounts of ghastly eastern bloc architecture and depressing night life.

After reading Holidays in Hell for the first time, I was fully bewitched… just the sight of his face on the cover would make me smile!

In my humble opinion, any guy who would shamelessly declare that he discovered that all people are the same, regardless of race or geographical location, via “sleeping around”, should be declared a national treasure.

 I delved further into his literary world and it felt like a trip to Disneyland… Disneyland when you’re a child, rather than a parent who is saddled with a diaper bag and mounting credit card debt.

Next, I found an old copy of The Bachelor Home Companion and I could not believe my own good fortune! It was hilarious from start to finish! It was so funny that my father also read it with tangible enjoyment!

P.J. crossed our generational divide due to his peerless wit and his immeasurable joie de vivre..

In particular, P.J.’s bachelor menu plan (Wednesday breakfast: Special K in mouthwash; Sunday dinner: cookies and water) was hysterical. I thought The Bachelor Home Companion was adorable, acerbic and endearing and I treasured the slim, royal blue volume as though it were made of gold.

What could be better than a guy who made you laugh so hard? A guy who made you think so hard! P.J. had it all.

I Needed to Get Real

And then there is the issue of politics… eventually, P.J. worked his magic there, too.

Never inclined to gullibility or blind faith, I was still a product of 80s thinking.

For example, the backlash against Reagonomics, not to mention the threat of nuclear oblivion (which was so masterfully captured in MTV videos such as Ultravox’s Dancing With Tears In My Eyes and Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s Two Tribes, et cetera), produced in my collegiate, wannabe-alternative psyche the mindset of a liberal softie who really never stopped to think i.e. question my own point of view.

 

With the help of P.J., I started to gain a deeper understanding of the harsher realities of life. This type of understanding typically arrives as a result of age, experience and wisdom.

Some homeless people really are shiftless, I would find myself thinking, very guiltily. Not all, but some. “Maybe they don’t deserve such a cushy social safety net”, I would muse, silently and almost appalled, as though I had practised blasphemy.

I started to see the drains on the system from the other side…the vast amount of money taken away from ordinary people who work hard in order to provide for those who don’t. I began to feel strongly about private property, about self-determination in life…

Politically, I began to veer wildly. I was changing lanes. I drifted over the median into Conservatism without it really registering at first. He only crystallized the thoughts that would have come anyway as I grew into adulthood and looked at the world with a more jaded gaze. However, it was important for me to hear a voice from the other side, in order to balance out all the Liberal thought I had embraced so eagerly, even thoughtlessly.

In addition, I started to like chinos, loafers, and navy-blue blazers. Who knew preppy and uptight could be so sexy!

I thought about how cool P.J. was every couple of weeks, at least. I read more of his books and articles and the attraction never faded.

I'm not a right-wing extremist or a Libertarian now (I am Canadian, after all, and we don’t really do that), but I at least have developed the logic to listen to the other side of the political story. When you don’t listen and you don’t stop to think, the picture is always incomplete.

Before P.J., my heart bled for every crackhead who held out an unwashed hand for a bit of spare change. I felt sorry for everyone, except serial killers. It was a hardening that was necessary and I thank P.J. for the wake-up call. Despite this, I must confess that I still give the homeless money on an almost-daily basis and sometimes leave sandwiches for them, in the dead of night, as they slumber in my local park.

In the end, I'm a Liberal and I will die a Liberal.

However, now and then, his thinking makes so much sense.

Some girls like rock stars… some girls like actors or major league baseball players. I just heart P.J., wishing I could be the lucky girl who clips his cigar in some exotic den of vice. I wish I were the girl who could sit and listen to all of that humour and brilliance, without having to download yet another podcast from Bill Maher’s program.

A man should be funny and a man should be whip-smart. When these vital qualities are in short supply, I lose interest fast. Mr O'Rourke has both qualities in incredible abundance.

Angelina Jolie might like frolicking on a beach in Africa with hunky Brad Pitt, but I think she would be better off with an ageing, hard-drinking guy from Ohio, (descended from used-car salesmen!) who could show her the other side of the political equation.

Don’t you?

MY BROTHER, THE METALHEAD

There was no point in knocking on his bedroom door…the music was always pounding, so I would just go in. Day or night, the blood-red curtains were drawn, casting an eerie, crimson glow over the room. Every wall was plastered with posters, and they would change as he became further indoctrinated into the church of heavy metal.

It started with the lighter sounds of early Van Halen and ended with the blistering darkness and speed of death-metal like Slayer.

Iron Maiden was supreme – the group dominated the landscape. The leering skeletal features of their mascot, Eddie, would glare down from every available surface, even the ceiling.

I was his little sister, two years younger, and I was his only sibling. By default, I became the sidekick and I learned everything about metal from Peter. I had absolutely no choice…there was no other topic - and no way to hang out with him - if you couldn’t "understand" the music.

My teenage life with Peter revolved around heated discussions of who was “heavy”. Metal musicians, I learned, could be defined by two categories: the aforementioned “heavy” or “true” metal (Maiden, Slayer, Metallica, AC/DC), or “poseurs”: (in his estimation, Poison, Yngwie Malmsteen, Quiet Riot).

These purveyors of “false” metal were simply not “heavy” enough… they were the enemy.

I have the funniest, fondest memories of good times with Peter, all of them linked to his total obsession with the music.

One day, Peter came home with a new shirt… it was a white Slayer T, with a death’s head in a Nazi helmet and the phrase Slayer SS Wehrmacht boldly inked out in large black letters.

Our father went ballistic. He’d been a good sport so far, putting up with the sleazy album covers, the audio assault of Voi Vod videos blasted through the rec room, the garish back-patches which Peter would wear on the back of his frayed Levi’s vest, the long hair…

But this was too much. The association with Nazism put my Dad over the edge and he threw my brother’s latest acquisition into the trash, in absolute disgust. My brother’s reaction was typical: Dad just didn’t “understand” Slayer.

Some nights, we would find ourselves in the tiny basement of Peter’s metal friend Jim’s record store. Growing up in a small town as we did, very suburban and proper, The Record Crypt was an anomaly. Compact, yet crammed with metal records, this entrepreneurial enterprise did not last long – however, Jim’s dreams for the Record Crypt were something that we could all respect.

Drinking Dr. MacGillicuddy’s Peach Schnapps out of a plastic bottle, with heavy metal coursing through my brain, I felt the first real stirrings of rebellion: I felt free.

I was getting into it, my preppy days a real contrast to this other life which consumed my free afternoons and evenings. I started to like Maiden, as Peter always referred to them, for real. I knew their story, from Paul Di’anno to Bruce Dickinson. In fact, it’s safe to say that I could have written their biography myself. To this day, I know their signs of the zodiac (Dickinson is a Leo).

Maiden were complex musically, that was the thing… they could really play. In addition, they were ambitious (unafraid of historical allusions and concept albums).

Maiden told stories, and when Peter finally took me to see them, I was really excited.
He took me to everything we could get to - Maiden, Megadeth, AC/DC, Guns ‘N’ Roses (in St. Petersburg, Florida, with a million scary bikers in attendance) and a Judas Priest show so effing loud we actually had to leave early because our ears hurt so much.

I remember the hum of anticipation in the arenas as the lights dimmed, as well as the warm, overpriced beer and the bad hot dogs that I ate there. I remember one time in Montreal when we went to see the Stones and had, arguably, the worst seats in the house. Hardly able to see or hear anything, we still partied. Peter would occasionally veer away from metal, but only for really good classic rock like the Stones. Gimme Shelter and other select tunes were “heavy”.

I liked Duran Duran as well as heavy metal – after all, I was a typical girl in the Eighties. I liked the Ace of Spades and I knew who Lemmy Kilmister was, but I was not authentically hard-core. My “crappy” taste in music was regarded with the cruelest mockery. The only Duran Duran Peter could stomach was the Girls on Film video, with the “naked chicks”.

Whenever I see Beavis and Butthead on TV, Butthead reminds me of my own dear brother.

Hours of my adolescence were wasted listening to Peter outline the whole Dave Mustaine vs. Metallica feud. I would lie around in his room, reading every metal magazine, every tour programme, every liner note from every 12” Maiden picture disc, ordered at great trouble and expense from Japan or the UK. Peter was just a paperboy, but he always found a way to get the metal he needed.

Now we’re in our forties…we are, I suppose, bona fide adults.

Whenever I see my brother, we still talk metal. I still know every word of every Maiden song - I always will. Last Christmas, I got Peter an “Aces High” black Maiden sweatshirt, unsure if he would still have the courage to wear it at his age. Eddie grinned sadistically from the cockpit of a WWII fighter and the graphic was all in a glowing, poisonous green.

He wears it proudly. He’ll be a metalhead forever, loyal and true. He’s the heaviest of fans, a connoisseur and a collector. He’s also the coolest of brothers and I thank him for the heavy metal memories.